About

Hi, my name is Andrej and I live most of the year in Aljezur, Portugal and during the summer months I treat myself with beautiful, fruitful landscapes of my home town of Znojmo in Czech Republic.

Green woodworking might be one of my favorite forms of meditation - the way it moment by moment absorbs my whole being and carves the path towards present moment, groundedness and centeredness. And than when I "wake up" again to this reality I have piece of wood in my hands which just represents this very journey and carries the all these qualities within. 

Many times you would find me biking around with piece of wood and my tools in the backpack, stopping in random places and carve a bit, imprinting various inner and outer landscapes into the very piece. The same way you can find imprints of my friends who are around me when I'm working on my creations. 

My carving adventure started when I was introduced to bowl carving in one of contact improvisation courses where it was part of program to explore "contact" with materials like wood, clay, metal etc. I instantly felt drawn to the craft and with support from my friend who shared her stories about her wood work and what qualities it brings to her life experience I got my first wood working tools and there I was...carving whatever piece of wood I came across.

The bigger spark came in 2021 when I moved to Portugal and met my partner with who we carved through the long nights of covid winter and step by step explored the craft mostly by experimentation and later on with guidance and insights from friends and carving masters. 

Since then Im learning about trees, wood, tools and various creations which can be done from the fresh woods. At the beginning it was all about rings, eating spoons and various kitchen utensils. Later on we experimented with making bowls, shrink pots, jewellery, plates etc. 

Together with this we started to host open creative spaces where people would work on their crafts, arts and various projects and many of them became our friends and friends of carving who I could accompany on their wood working exploration.